Nobel Prize of literature - in about 4 hours

[Sand]

Someone said
Ryszard Kapuściński?

I read something by him a couple of decades ago and while listening to a interview by him a couple of weeks ago, I thought about searching out one of his travel books.

I really have no idea who'll come up this year.

[Sand]

Omar Pamouk -

And I believe that Cem and Gokhan like him - and some others as well.

[Sand]

Orhan Pamuk wins Nobel prize

Richard Lea and agencies
Thursday October 12, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel prize in literature. Photograph: AP

The Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, whose trial on charges of "insulting Turkishness" was dropped earlier this year, has won the 2006 Nobel prize for literature.The Swedish Academy praised his work, saying that "in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city [he] has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures."
The award follows last year's decision by the Academy to honour the playwright Howard Pinter, who used his acceptance speech to launch an attack on US foreign policy.

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Pamuk's work, which has achieved both critical and commercial success in Turkey and beyond, examines questions of identity, and explores the transformations of modern Turkish society.At 7-1, Pamuk was third favourite with bookmakers Ladbrokes in the run up to the prize, after the perennial Nobel contender Ali Ahmad Said, the Syrian poet better known as Adonis (3-1) and the American author Joyce Carol Oates (6-1).

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Sand

Ryszard Kapuściński?

I read something by him a couple of decades ago and while listening to a interview by him a couple of weeks ago, I thought about searching out one of his travel books.

His mixed genre book The Emperor, about Haile Selassie is a tour de force.

[Clay Fink]

I loved "Snow". He's a wonderful writer.

[Gentle Giant]

I'm going to have to write my Turkish friends, now back in Turkey, to see how the country is taking the news.

[gnhrtg]

Originally Posted by Sand

Omar Pamouk -
And I believe that Cem and Gokhan like him - and some others as well.

Yes, I do. The Black Book is probably my favorite, though I have not yet read Snow. In fact (and maybe surprisingly, though I can't say why it might be surprising), of my friends who are interested in literature/literary fiction, I cannot think of anyone who does not like Pamuk - though many of us are not fond of New Life, mostly because we had to read it for a course in high-school and I never gave it a second change.

I was talking to a South African (white/girl) at a conference, yes this was a conference on organization(al) research but in my inability to make small talk the subject came up, and she was really pissed at (more like taking the piss out of) Coetzee of late, based on the ideas in his books and his recent move out of South Africa. I told her I (still) liked Coetzee a lot and finished by adding, "Many in Turkey don't like Orhan Pamuk much either".

I'm very glad to see him receive the award.

edit: By the way, I think they have done a poor job of summing up (the essence of) his work in the following one-liner: "in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city [he] has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures."

[clinthopson]

The Nobel for lit is becoming more of a farce each year.

It's all about the board's politics.

Nothing to do with great literature.

[Jon Abbey]

Originally Posted by clinthopson

The Nobel for lit is becoming more of a farce each year.

It's all about the board's politics.

Nothing to do with great literature.

I'd be willing to bet you've never read a single book by Pamuk. right or wrong?

Kapuscinski's work is exclusively nonfiction, I believe, which I don't think qualifies for this award. I'm a big fan of his, haven't read any Pamuk yet myself.

[Gerardo A]

Non fiction can qualify for the award, but it's rare I think. I'm thinking of Winston Churchill's historical essays...And the awards to philosophers.

[clinthopson]

Nope, I haven't read Pamuk. I fact I never heard of him until the flap about the Turkish gov't and their actions.

I'll check him out.

But, being an Amuuican, I'm exposed mostly to English speaking writers and am baffled why so many great North American writers are never considered i.e. August Wilson, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike and a host of others.

I don;t doubt that Pamuk is an accomplished writer, but the timeing of this aqward is purely political as have most of them have been in recent times.

[Jon Abbey]

Kurt Vonnegut is, and always has been, a hack. maybe he can win the award for "books that most resonate with American college students".

[Sand]

Originally Posted by Jon Abbey

I'd be willing to bet you've never read a single book by Pamuk. right or wrong?

Kapuscinski's work is exclusively nonfiction, I believe, which I don't think qualifies for this award. I'm a big fan of his, haven't read any Pamuk yet myself.

I've learned that the commitee now is giving more attention to essays, travel writing and other texts. Kapuscinski does qualify.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by clinthopson

Nope, I haven't read Pamuk. I fact I never heard of him until the flap about the Turkish gov't and their actions.

I'll check him out.

But, being an Amuuican, I'm exposed mostly to English speaking writers and am baffled why so many great North American writers are never considered i.e. August Wilson, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike and a host of others.

I don;t doubt that Pamuk is an accomplished writer, but the timeing of this aqward is purely political as have most of them have been in recent times.

I agree with your last sentence. As for the sentence before that, don't forget that Toni Morrison won it a few years ago.

Also, everyone hates us.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Originally Posted by Jon Abbey

Kurt Vonnegut is, and always has been, a hack. maybe he can win the award for "books that most resonate with American college students".

So it goes.............

[Clay Fink]

Originally Posted by clinthopson

Nope, I haven't read Pamuk. I fact I never heard of him until the flap about the Turkish gov't and their actions.

I'll check him out.

Worthwhile.

But, being an Amuuican, I'm exposed mostly to English speaking writers and am baffled why so many great North American writers are never considered i.e. August Wilson, Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike and a host of others.

I'd add my favorite: Philip Roth.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Jon Abbey

Kurt Vonnegut is, and always has been, a hack. maybe he can win the award for "books that most resonate with American college students".

He'd have to sharpen his elbows and start stabbing the competition to even get there. Vonnegut, with maybe Robert Heinlein, or whatsis face, Holden Caufield, is the dangerous and deceptive shoals where an intelligent, adolescent mind is like to find safe harbor but then never leave. Same with Bukowski, same with Hesse, same with a lot of schmaltz. Oh, you want to kick some kids asses and say "there's more to literature than this!" I can't tell you how many halfwits have told me I "have" to read Vonnegut. Not half so much as I "have" to regurgitate at the mandate. God, I'm an arrogant ass.

Never read Pamuk. Have meant to.

Pamuk, you're the writer tonight. Pamuk, you're the winner tonight. Pamuk, if you ever were a writer to begin with, Pamuk, you're a winner tonight.

Congrats to the winner and turkeys everywhere.

[Paul H]

Pamuk's The White Castle, translated into English in 1990 by Victoria Holbrook, is a fine book.

[Jon Abbey]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

He'd have to sharpen his elbows and start stabbing the competition to even get there. Vonnegut, with maybe Robert Heinlein, or whatsis face, Holden Caufield, is the dangerous and deceptive shoals where an intelligent, adolescent mind is like to find safe harbor but then never leave. Same with Bukowski, same with Hesse, same with a lot of schmaltz. Oh, you want to kick some kids asses and say "there's more to literature than this!" I can't tell you how many halfwits have told me I "have" to read Vonnegut. Not half so much as I "have" to regurgitate at the mandate. God, I'm an arrogant ass.

don't forget the queen, Ayn Rand.

[bobetterblues]

Originally Posted by Jon Abbey

don't forget the queen, Ayn Rand.

and Johnathan Franzen....

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Jon Abbey

don't forget the queen, Ayn Rand.

She's definitely the first stop, last stop for a lot of arrested deep thinkers. Chomsky's her opposite number.

[walto]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

She's definitely the first stop, last stop for a lot of arrested deep thinkers. Chomsky's her opposite number.

Not such a good analogy, I don't think. Chomsky's hard to read, Rand's stuff is simpler and easier than Roald Dahl. I mean they're both annoying (and tend toward unidimensionality in their rants, I guess), but she's wolfed down in 400-page gulps because she wrote comic book novels, and he isn't read at all.

[Captain Hate]

Originally Posted by walto

Not such a good analogy, I don't think. Chomsky's hard to read, Rand's stuff is simpler and easier than Roald Dahl. I mean they're both annoying (and tend toward unidimensionality in their rants, I guess), but she's wolfed down in 400-page gulps because she wrote comic book novels, and he isn't read at all.

Well they both have their slavish acolytes....

Back to Pamuk: I read both Snow and My Name is Red and, even though I enjoyed them and found them well written, ultimately they were both unsatisfying to me and I'm not sure exactly why other than they left me with an "eh" feeling.

[Paul B]

I had the same feeling about "My Name is Red." In fact, I only managed to get through about 3/4 of the book, at which point I just put it down (rare for me to not finish something.) However, I read "Istanbul," his book about the city, and found it quite interesting. The photos are haunting and beautiful, and he really seemed at home just talking about growing up in what must be one of the most fascinating cities in the world.

Compared to some of the nobodies who have received the Nobel, Pamuk is a good choice it seems to me.

Bye-ya

[Chris D]

Can someone ask him why Constantinople got the works?

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by walto

Not such a good analogy, I don't think. Chomsky's hard to read, Rand's stuff is simpler and easier, etc etc.

The analogy is only good in so far as the works are abused, not how they're written. Chomsky may be "hard to read," though he never has struck me as so(read one of this books and you've absorbed his whole canon), but a seeming obscurantism is a literary virtue to the scholastic left, every bit as much as cartoonish arguments are to the autodidactic Nietzschean uber-right.

[clinthopson]

Geez, Jon, lighten up a bit.

I'm far from being a high school kid but I still dig Bucky although where would he have been without Fante?

[Jon Abbey]

Originally Posted by clinthopson

Geez, Jon, lighten up a bit.

I'll lighten up if you stop living up to every ugly American stereotype out there, dismissing an award's winner despite not having read a single word by him. you say "being an American, I'm exposed mostly to English speaking writers" as if no other books get translated into English. uh huh.

[Paul B]

Clint, I must say that I agree about Updike. At this point he'd be an obvious candidate, despite clinkers--rare, certainly--such as his latest novel.

Bye-ya

[Sand]